Readers vote on where this story goes next! Welcome to Briarwich. A sleepy coastal town with a dark history. You are Morgan, a college student on a boating trip with your four best friends. When you and your friends become stranded in Briarwich, you...
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Camilla's Deal
The black wells that are Camilla's eyes stare into yours, bidding you to make a choice – any choice. For a few seconds, you are mesmerized by their swirling depths, varying shades of black highlighted by the wavering light of the lantern, like tendrils of ink bleeding across damp parchment.
Then you lick your lips, and give your answer, "Yes."
Out of the corner of your eye, you see your friends shift uneasily from foot to foot – anxiety plain in their faces.
You expect Camilla to be smiling, not unlike a demon in an old fairy tale who has tricked the unsuspecting traveler, but her expression is grave.
She leans in close and speaks to you quietly, "Give me your hand."
Obediently, you offer Camilla your outstretched hand, palm up. She grasps you by the wrist, hands as soft as old vellum, and presses the pad of her thumb into the tender flesh just below the heel of your hand. Sharp pain like a spider bite shoots up your arm. It is not unbearable, but it forces a gasp of surprise from your lips. The sensation travels up your arm, through your shoulder, until you can feel the skin of your scalp begin to prickle. You feel light headed, as though you have not eaten for days and then stood up too fast. Your eyes flutter, as you fight to remain on your feet.
There, behind the sanctuary of your closed eyelids, is Camilla. She is not there in the physical sense, but you can feel the core of her being staring back at you from the void. The experience is eerily like when you encountered the thing in the orchard, which sends your heart fluttering against your ribs in a panic.
"Peace," you hear Camilla say, but you are unsure if she spoke aloud. "You need to relax."
Your body is trembling, but you manage to take a deep breath in through your nose. You hold the air in your lungs, savoring its rejuvenating energy, before letting it escape past your lips.
There is no pain and no fear, only the strange sensation of being watched from the shadows. More and more, you realize that Camilla is not like the thing in the orchard at all. When that creature, that entity, made contact with you, it rammed against the fragile barrier of your consciousness like a semi-truck. It wanted you to bend and break under the pressure. It tried to shatter everything that you were, everything that you are, into a million tiny pieces. Camilla was forging the same sort of connection, but with the practiced precision of a surgeon with a scalpel, rather than the bludgeoning force of a blacksmith's hammer.
The room swims back into view and you realize you have been standing with your back ramrod straight. When you try to move, you let out a groan. You're not in pain, but your muscles feel stiff and ache dully when you try to examine your arm.
A black mark like a drop of wet ink mars the skin where Camilla's thumb had been. Only about the diameter of a dime, the spot could be mistaken for a mole or a birthmark from a distance, but up close the tiny tendrils along its edge like fine hair betray its unnatural origin.
